Follow all the lastest news from the Superbike World Championship here on Track News.

WORLD SUPERBIKES

Ducati's Davies dominates the Lausitzring

Race One

Chaz Davies has clinched his fifth victory of the 2017 World Superbike championship in race one at Lausitzring after easing clear of the chasing Kawasaki pair of Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes. The Aruba.it Racing Ducati cut through from sixth on the grid to second place during the opening lap tussles before taking the lead from Sykes up the inside into turn ten on lap two. Rea duly followed Davies past Sykes at the first turn on lap three as the pair pulled clear of the pole-sitter.

While the top three traded similar lap times in the opening half of the race, Davies eventually broke clear of Rea to gradually build a lead without ever looking seriously challenged. With Davies over 100 points off of the World Superbike title leader, Rea settled for second place to extend his championship advantage to 63 points with Sykes back in third. In a relatively uneventful race, Marco Melandri guided his Aruba.it Racing Ducati to fourth place despite suffering a huge drop-off in performance in the closing laps to finish ahead of MV Agusta’s Leon Camier by half a second.

With Camier impressing in fifth, Alex Lowes was forced to settle for sixth place on the Pata Yamaha but comfortably ahead of front-row starter Lorenzo Savadori in seventh for Milwaukee Aprilia. After disastrous opening laps by Jordi Torres and Eugene Laverty respectively, the Spanish rider recovered from dropping to 21st to take eighth place as Laverty produced a similar feat to climb up the field from 20th to tenth place.

Further back Leandro Mercado on the IodaRacing Aprilia finished 11th ahead of Puccetti Kawasaki’s Randy Krummenacher with wildcarding Markus Reiterberger in 13th on the Van Zon Remeha BMW. Roman Ramos (Team Go Eleven Kawasaki) and Michael van der Mark on the Pata Yamaha completed the points finishers with the Dutch rider suffering an early off-track moment at turn 11. It was a disastrous race for Red Bull Honda once again with Stefan Bradl unable to start the race due to injury before new rider Davide Giugliano was forced to retire from the race with a technical issue.

Race Two

Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) wrapped up a superb weekend on Sunday with his second victory of the Prosecco DOC German Round in Race 2, whilst Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) also secured podium results. With light rain falling during the final laps the WorldSBK riders had to focus hard in order to avoid any mistakes and Davies did just that to register a third victory in four races at Lausitzring. Coming from the back of the third row on the grid the Welshman ultimately beat Rea across the line by 2.29s, with Melandri just over two further seconds back having held the lead early in the race.

Despite setting pole on Saturday Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) could not stay with the front three on this occasion and finished in fourth place having started Race 2 in seventh on the grid. The results saw World Champion and standings leader Rea open up a 70-point gap over his teammate Sykes in the standings with four rounds to go. Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) just beat Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) to fifth by 0.237s, with five Britons finishing in the top six.

Just behind them on the finish line was Lorenzo Savadori (Milwaukee Aprilia) as the top Aprilia-equipped rider, just trailing Camier by 0.115s in that tight group also involving Lowes. Jordi Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team), German wildcard Markus Reiterberger (Van Zon Remeha BMW) and Xavi Fores (BARNI Racing Team) completed the top ten. A brave ride by Stefan Bradl (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team) saw him finish 13th, after he missed Race 1 due to severe elbow pain from a crash on Friday. Randy Krummenacher (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing), Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) and Pawel Szkopek (Pazera Racing) all crashed out, with Riccardo Russo (Pedercini Racing SC-Project) also suffering a DNF as a late retiree.